


Personal Effects

by Measured



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Angst and Humor, Collection: Fandom Stocking 2014, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-04 21:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3092144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured/pseuds/Measured
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The contents of a wallet, bag or pockets can tell a lot about a person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal Effects

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RAXip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RAXip/gifts).



> Credit cards harken back to the 1800s, but the modern day credit card comes from 1966. I'd like to think that Spy would be on top of everything modern. http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-cards-history-1264.php
> 
> Multiversecafe, I choose you for fandom_stocking!

_Spy._

Spy was never simple, especially when it came to his personal effects. He kept one wallet for show, with whatever identity he had at the time, enough currency of wherever he was to not seem out of place with whoever he was impersonating at the time, and a few breath mints.

With each time, it would change. Library cards, credit cards, enough to give this new false face a life and a story.

In the hem of jackets, in hidden corners and pockets, and even his hollowed-out-teeth, he would put things of himself. A charm of the Eiffel tower he'd bought as a child; a franc he could flip between his fingers, pictures of her.

He never put her face where it could be found. He'd had etched a stylized pin-up of her on his gun, different enough for no one to notice. He kept a hint of her perfume in his personal things, a small sample taken from a high class store unaware.

He couldn't bring himself to burn her letters. One day, the world might find out the grave of Etienne LeCroix was empty, save for letters and pictures of a former pin-up model, but he'd be long gone by then.

 

_Scout._

When he first came, he had so many things, he couldn't fit them all in his pants. His hand-me-down wallet was stuffed to the brim, until it left ugly bulges in his back pocket, like the last explosions really had scared him shitless, to quote Demoman.

He hadn't gotten a lot of things as a child, being dirt poor and all, but one of his ma's less assholish boyfriends had given him a hand-me-down duffel bag, which was almost the size of small purse. He refused to call that, though, because that would be admitting he had a manpurse, and that just wasn't happening.

Sure, he got teased for it. At least until he punched their face in. After that, they didn't tease him about his _duffel bag_ any more.

A bag that big, he could fill it up with all the stuff he needed, like cans of Bonk and have enough room to push drawing pads and pencils in the back, and his whole scrapbook of family photos. The bag was pretty much indestructible, being and old army supplies thing which was waterproof and probably stitched with friggin' australium for how much it took. It didn't take long for Scout to fill it right up, because his ma was always taking pictures, and she even kept doubles for when accidents happened—and there were always accidents happening.

They kept him company when he could only make a phone call a day to his family. He never told his family how horrible those first days were, when he'd been thrown on a battlefield with a bunch of guys who knew war way better than he did.

But, he got used to it. He worked until he was even good at it. But those first days of dying were some of the worst he'd ever had. But a look at those pictures again, and he almost felt alive again. His ma sent more pictures of the pretty dresses and nice house on a street where nobody worried if they'd live the night through.

And damn, if he had to have nine lives like a cat and spend all of them here just to make sure his ma kept smiling, then he would.

 

_Pyro._

Pyro's pockets were filled with matches, flecks of coal, ash and the ripped and burned remains of animal pictures. There was one little lucky rabbit's foot made from a stuffed toy, not a real one, Engineer had assured. His suit had many pockets, and in all of them there were bits of ash, or as Pyro saw it, rainbow dust.

Pyro's one goal in the world was to make everyone happy, and what would make them happier than making everything in the world into rainbow dust?

 

_Engineer._

His PDA held a great deal of data, hidden behind so many passwords that no spy could get to them. His overall pockets were filled with blueprints of all kinds, because one can never have too many blueprints. Hidden behind walls, behind passwords and in secret compartments were old faded pictures. A father he hadn't spoken to in years, a lost boyhood, and the mysteries of his grandfather.

He'd reclaimed what Blutarch had robbed from the grave, and even added his own flair until they were polished into perfection. Every time one of his sentries shot down some dirty varmint Spy, he tipped his hat to his grandfather Radigan. May he rest in peace.

 

_Medic._

Bird feathers, on occasion a misplaced finger or piece of viscera from the battlefield or surgery. Doctors were known to have messy handwriting, but Medic had expanded to messy everything. His genius came in bursts and chaotic sparks just like that. He was too busy to clean the blood spatters of his hands, and walls, and even clothes, or at least, that was the excuse. It lent a certain gothic appeal, and he always liked the scent of death so near and intimate.

All he had to do was catch his reflection in the glass and see Dr. Frankenstein, but with a much happier ending. After all, he wasn't a moralistic fool, and he wouldn't bargain away his chances to create his Übermensch so easily.

 

_Soldier._

Several medals of honor (The Coca Cola Purple heart, the RED Dread beer bottle medal of valor), made by himself. He'd kept a Swiss Army knife, until someone informed him that it was supporting the Swiss and he wouldn't stand _neutrality_ , or as he knew better _cowardice_.

(He stopped eating cheese after that, in case they might secretly betray him. All except American, because that was one food that truly loved America as much as he did).

Of course, like any good American, he'd gotten the flag tattooed over his heart, his biceps and his ass. Each one was another punch of justice to the face of communism as a whole.

He longed for the day he could moon mother Russia with his ass of freedom, but he mostly had to settle for the Russian man who mysteriously roomed with his good freedom-loving comrade, Heavy.

 

_Sniper._

Spare shells, a few laminated business cards he'd had made. His mum said they were good for business, and had them made. The floral design sort of made him look like his was a traveling florist, but he'd never thrown them out.

He'd kept a single picture of his parents in the old days, but they'd grown faded and water damaged before the first month was over. And with the constant threat of spies, he never replaced them.

Years later, he would have no pictures left, no family left. Then it was nothing but bullets and his knife. He never thought something so light as a photo would be so heavy that he noticed its absence.

 

_Demoman._

A bottle opener, a little folded up periodic table---the last remnants of his adopted parents. Enough explosions and trips through hell and back had made it dark at the edges, until it was almost unreadable. He already knew each part by heart already.

Deep down was a gold doubloon from a pirate treasure, a key to a haunted mansion and so many other secrets he would unravel one day. The world was full of bloody monsters just waiting for a bomb shoved down their throat. Nessie had been first, but she was hardly the last. Wizards, eyes, or ghosts that would rattle at his door. For all the monsters he could hunt down and blow apart, he couldn't do anything about the ghosts inside himself but drink them away.

 

_Heavy._

As anyone who had grown up in Mother Russia, he knew that anything he said could doom his family. He kept quiet. His pockets were full of bullets, bits of bird feather and down that always settled there after his visits to Doktor and Archimedes, and ripped pieces of paper for his bookmarks. Sometimes, the birds snuck in and stole his paper to line their nests. He left breadcrumbs in there, until he'd find birds nestled in his pockets when he woke up and dressed.

His room was filled with Russian novels. Inside a few, he allowed the indulgence of pictures of his family. He'd paid a bookbinder in Russia to make him secret books. War and Peace hollowed out until it was only the peace of photographs of his sisters growing up without him.


End file.
